I looked down toward the voice, but three different men were looking back. I wasn’t sure who had spoken, so I said to all of them, “That’s not possible. My father was a man of honor. He loved us!” But even as I spoke those words, I felt a chill along my spine. Was that what I was secretly hoping? As heartbreaking as it would be to think he had abandoned us, at least he’d be alive. But no, that was not my father. Letter or no letter, there had to be some other explanation.
I glanced at Rosa who was sitting across from them, but she turned her head as a woman’s voice on the end said seductively, “Honey, a man is a man—and even a man of honor can’t help being a man.” Everyone laughed.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, letting it bump repeatedly against the side. Then I heard Rosa’s confident voice, “You can all laugh, but Alma and I know our father. Es un buen hombre.” When I opened my eyes, she was smiling at me, her face soft with trust, her eyes full of faith. I quickly looked away.
“Don’t listen to them,” a motherly voice was saying. “They’re a bunch of baboons. Listen to your hearts. You’ll find him.”
I studied my short stubby fingers and thought of my neat, blocklike printing, so perfect for listing numbers. Rosa’s letters were full of loops that overlapped those above and below. And my mother, well, my mother’s printing was large and crude, like a child with a fat crayon. Not like that perfect script in the letter. When I glanced up, Rosa’s eyes were pensive and serious. I knew she was studying me, so I lifted my chin and smiled, but she didn’t smile back. She was trying to read me, to penetrate my thoughts, but I held my gaze steady. She would never discover that. Not even Papá knew I saw his secret letter.
It was a slow, bumpy six-hour ride as we wound through the mountains, past smaller cities such as Tlacolula and San Jeronimo Tlacochahuaya, and then along stretches of farmland. We stopped twice to relieve ourselves, but other than that, I was curled up like a scorpion’s tail the whole way, dozing off and on as the trucks made their way northwest.
It was no mystery why I awoke as we approached Santa María del Tule, just 14 kilometers from the outskirts of Oaxaca City. My eyes filled with tears just thinking of the magnificent Árbol del Tule, a 2,000-year-old Mexican cypress tree in the center of town where Papá had taken me so many times. I remember Papá said it was more sacred a temple than the Monte Alban—the famous Zapotec ruins outside our city—because the grand ahuehuete tree had been planted by the gods themselves. Its huge gnarled trunk, the size of a house, yielded its own forest of trees reaching high into the sky. When I was very young, I asked Papá to dig it up and replant it next to our home. It would be my own private forest. I remember him laughing and swooping me up in his arms, as he asked, “Mi niñita, how about if I dig up our house and move it here? It would be much easier.” For weeks I had pestered him with a shovel and even went so far as to begin digging beside our house myself.
Papá dreamed of owning his own farm in lush Zimatlán or picturesque San Sebastián de las Grutas. That’s why he journeyed to the farmlands in the United States. He would never be able to buy his own land on the wages he earned on the farms of Oaxaca—though he loved working that land. Of course, once his family began to grow, this money was needed to feed and clothe us, and his dream remained just that—a dream.
As we passed Santa María del Tule and were approaching our Oaxaca City, both Rosa and I turned facing outward on our knees with our arms resting along the side of the truck bed. None of it looked familiar, but we were passing through the eastern edge and we had lived on the southwestern fringes of the city. We passed a large dilapidated building and a dirt lot with stacks of wrecked cars and trucks, then a little further down we saw a house with a red tile roof and a lush grass lawn next to a block-long nursery of plants and flowers and small trees. But very soon we were in traffic, weaving our way diagonally through the city toward the town center. When I finally glimpsed the twin bell towers of Oaxaca Cathedral, my heart pumped madly. We were home! But then the reality hit, like a quick punch to the stomach: There was no “home” to go to. No Mamá and the boys. No Papá. My heart sank.
My excitement was subdued as we passed the cathedral and then skirted around the zócalo, though I caught a glimpse of the pedestrian plaza with people strolling about and vendors selling huge, colorful balloons, roasted corn, and ice cream. How many times had Papá and I shared an ice cream right there, sitting on a wall in the shade, watching people go by? Turning at the majestic city hall Palacio de Gobierno, we approached Benito Juárez Mercado and pulled to a stop beside the brick building. Part indoor, part covered outdoor, the market stretched for two blocks and sold everything you can imagine: the freshest fruit and vegetables, poultry and fish, both modern and traditional clothing, shoes, belts, hats, piñatas, toys, souvenirs, and every craft imaginable. Papá always said that nowhere in Mexico could you find better mole, chocolate, or chapulines than in Oaxaca. The mole sauce and the chocolate I
